


dream of times gone by

by what_a_dork_fish



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Child Abuse, Childhood Memories, Dreams, lol I know why, why do I keep doing this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 11:44:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17600726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/what_a_dork_fish/pseuds/what_a_dork_fish
Summary: The interloper didn't expect to see these dreams not his own.





	dream of times gone by

He’s on the edge of dreams when he realizes the dream isn’t his.

With that realization, it snaps into terrifying clarity.

He’s in a richly-appointed sitting room, across from a cheerful fireplace. But the very air is thick with sadness and impotent rage. He turns his head to look at the doorway. A little boy stands there, pale as snow with the fear that’s plain in his expression. His hair is limp, his eyes red from weeping, and his shoulders are hunched.

“Mother,” he says, and his voice is clear as if this were no dream, “Maybe you should stop drinking for the night.”

He turns his head the other way, surprised, and sees a woman draped on a sofa, her dress wrinkled and stained, her hand shaking as she raises a glass of something to her lips. She gulps the drink, then looks right at the boy, and scowls. The hatred in her face is terrifying. “Shut up,” she snaps, her voice rough and her speech slurred. “You’re not the boss of me.”

“Mother, you’re making yourself sick,” the boy insists, taking a step forward, though it makes him shake with fear. “Please.”

“No!” The woman struggles upright, swaying where she sits. “I’ll drink as much as I please! Go away and bother your stepfather!”

The boy hugs himself tightly. “He went to bed. Everyone’s in bed. Please, Mother, it’s late.”

“NO!” The woman throws her glass with surprising accuracy, and it shatters against the boy’s head. A cut opens in his eyebrow. In that moment, something flickers—his skin is not uniformly pale, there are bruises, and cuts, and deep circles under his eyes. But then the illusion is back in place. “If it’s that late, then YOU go to bed! Monster! Demon!”

The boy bows his head and leaves. The woman collapses on the sofa and picks up a bottle of wine, drinking greedily, wine sloshing down her chin.

The interloper has seen enough. He closes his eyes tightly and wills himself out of this dream.

But instead of returning to his own dreams, he finds himself in a graveyard, standing in the first rank of mourners, staring at a coffin being covered with dirt. The boy is there, a few years older. Tears roll down his cheeks, and he is devastated. None of the other mourners are. Their faces are stony. None of them are crying. The boy is the only one missing his mother.

The interloper closes his eyes again and tries to reach for his own mind.

The sound of fists on flesh. The interloper’s eyes spring open.

He watches on as the boy fights with another. It’s clear the boy will lose; the other is taller, older, stronger. He grabs the boy’s throat with both hands, strangling him, and grins as the boy gasps and fights.

“It’s your fault, Charles,” the other whispers harshly. “She died because of you. Don’t you ever forget. I won’t.”

The boy is crying, but he’s only fighting out of reflex. His eyes are dull and full of despair. The other drops him, and he crumples to the ground, sobbing.

The interloper feels sick, staring at the battered boy on the ground. He closes his eyes one more time.

When he opens them again, the boy is now a man. He stares the interloper right in the eye, sober and challenging.

“So now you know,” the man says. “That’s what happened. That’s what grew on my mind until I was an adult in the eyes of the law. Do you want to know what changed?”

The interloper tries to shake his head, but somehow the motion turns into a nod.

“Close your eyes.”

The interloper does so.

When next he opens them, he’s standing in a small, dingy room full of dingy furniture. The boy, now a young man, is sitting on the floor, staring at the wall with the air of one who knows he will never be happy.

“I’m sorry, mother,” he murmurs. Something shiny turns in his hands. The interloper is very uneasy when he realizes what it is. It’s a knife. “I’m sorry, mother.”

Just as the boy sets the knife to the skin of his wrist, a young woman walks into the room. The boy hides the knife under his leg and smiles brightly at the woman. “Hey, Raven,” he says.

“Hey,” Raven replies shortly. “I’m not going to the grave this year.”

The boy’s smile falters, then falls away. “Okay.”

“And you shouldn’t either,” Raven continues. “It’s bad for you.”

“She’s my mother,” the boy protests. “I have to visit her.”

“That’s the problem!” Raven snaps, scowling fiercely. “You still talk like she’s alive! She’s _dead_ , Charles! Dead! And she didn’t love you anyway, so how can you still love her?!”

“She does—did love me!” the boy retorts hotly, surging to his feet. “She was sick, but she still loved me!”

“So being called a monster is love?” Raven asks, her tone angry and cruel. “Being beaten unless she was too drunk to stand is love? Neglect is love?”

“That wasn’t her fault!” the boy splutters. There’s fear on his face, now. “She was sick!”

“Yeah, sick as in a sadist! She hated you, Charles! Fucking accept that!”

The interloper stares in horror as the boy stares at Raven, lips moving but no sound coming out. His face begins to crack, spiderwebs of fissures steadily spreading. “She didn’t hate me,” he finally whispers.

“Yes she did!” Raven snarls. “She hated everyone! She hated the world! The only thing she loved was alcohol!”

The fissures deepen, and chunks of the boy’s face begin to slip. “No,” he says weakly. “She was my mother. She loved me.”

“For fuck’s sake, Charles, stop clinging to this idea that blood relatives love each other no matter what!” Raven takes three deep breaths, and says in a lower tone, “Don’t go to her grave. You’re only going to hurt yourself more.”

There’s a sound like cracking ice, and the boy crumbles. His clothes drop, empty except for dust, and there’s nothing there anymore. The interloper’s horror deepens into true terror.

“She killed me,” whispers the man’s voice. The dream-vision seems to have frozen, Raven’s eyes fixed on the place where the boy’s face should’ve been. “She didn’t mean to. She only meant to help. But she killed me. It took a long time to accept what she said, but I did. And I remade myself. I don’t think I did very well.”

The interloper closes his eyes. He just wants to go back, go to his own dreams. He understands now. He was too hasty to tell the man that he had lived the perfect life, insulated by his wealth. Pain comes in many forms.

“No. You were right. I have been insulated. But I’ve also lived in the real world. I’ve seen the pain of others, lived in poverty and given up hope of rising again. The differences were—are—still too great to surmount, though. I was given my inheritance. I healed. Very few are as lucky as me. I’m sorry I ever compared myself to you. But I want you to know that I’m not pitying you. We’ve both been hurt deeply. And I’m sorry.”

“You’re always sorry.”

“And I always mean it.”

The interloper doesn’t know how to reply. So he says nothing.

The man sighs. “I can make it so you don’t remember this. I can make it so you only know you had a strange dream that you can’t make sense of. Would you prefer that?”

He nods.

“Okay.”

And the dream spirals away, leaving him floating in a dark place. He sighs in relief, and waits to wake up.

~

Erik is confused when Charles asks him, “How did you sleep last night?”

“Fine,” Erik replies shortly.

Charles nods, and smiles, soft and bitter. “Good,” he murmurs.

Erik does not ask.

**Author's Note:**

> comments = life, love, and happiness


End file.
